INSIDE - fnal.gov

F E R M I L A B A U.S. D E P A R T M E N T O F E N E R G Y L A B O R A T O R Y

F N E E R W M S I

Volume 27

June 2004

Number 6

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INSIDE:2 No End In S ight

4 Fermi lab ’s Greatest Hi ts

6 26 Years of Qui rks and Quarks

8 The View From a Lens:Photographers Pick Thei r Favor i tes

12 Hand-Craf t ing the News and Launching New Careers

14 What ’s Cooking?

2 FERMINEWS June 2004

by Elizabeth Clements

No End In SightFrom the first issue of FERMINEWS in 1978, to the electronic publication of Fermilab Today, newsgathering at Fermilab has undergone continualtransition. The fall debut of the new magazine SYMMETRY will continue that process and significantly extend its reach.

The first issue of FERMINEWS hit the stands on May 11, 1978 with theannouncement: “The ‘VILLAGE CRIER,’ Fermilab’s employee’s newsletter for nine years is now history. This is Volume 1, issue number 1, of the Crier’ssuccessor, ‘FERMINEWS.’”

In 26 years, the news at Fermilab has really not changed all that much.

One article in Issue No. 1 announces that new energy-saving panels are being tested on the fifth floor of Wilson Hall (then called the CentralLaboratory). Another invites employees to a New England-Style Dance onMay 13. Fermilab physicist Marvin E. Johnson has been elected president of the Amoco Research Center chapter of Sigma Xi. Fermilab plans to delay Arbor Day activities until May 23, to maximize employee participation.A prairie burn was held inside the main ring on April 14, and the FermilabInternational Film Society presents “The Battle of Algiers” at 8:00 p.m. onFriday in the auditorium. Sound familiar? Even the phone number for the

Pat Turkot (left) and Al Benson of the Fermilab Public Information Office compile the first issue ofFERMINEWS in 1978.

ON THE WEB:

Fermilab Today: www.fnal.gov/today

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From the first issue of FERMINEWS (top) in 1978,to the electronic publication of Fermilab Today,newsgathering at Fermilab has undergonecontinual transition.

FERMINEWS June 2004 3

Office of Public Affairs, listed in the issue as Ext. 3351, hasn’t changed in the past 26 years.

Even in 1978, meetings were interrupted byelectronic gadgetry. An announcement states:“Holders of Fermilab pagers are requested to turnoff or turn down pagers when attending large groupmeetings. The pager’s beep and broadcast disruptseven the most organized speaker’s presentation.”Some things never change.

This first issue uses the metaphor of the phoenix to introduce a new publication: “Like the legendaryphoenix, a mythological bird that lived for 500years, cremated itself and rose again from its own ashes, FERMINEWS will carry on where the Crier left off.”

In 1969, the VILLAGE CRIER made its debut asthe main vehicle of employee communication at the laboratory. For nine years, the Fermilab PublicInformation Office published the weekly newsletter,and employees grew accustomed to it. Notsurprisingly, some didn’t want to see it go.

“We were no longer just a village. The laboratorywas now functioning and operating. It was time to modernize,” said Chuck Marofske, head of theLaboratory Services Section from the first day itwas established until he retired in 1998.

“In general, FERMINEWS was received positivelyby the lab,” he said. “There were certainly somewho felt that they didn’t want to give up the old. But on the whole, at that time, we were all veryexcited about moving ahead. FERMINEWS wasjust one additional piece of evidence that we were really becoming a good thing.”

As an employee of 30 years with badge number 54, Marofske witnessed an evolution incommunicating at Fermilab. “In the early days,FERMINEWS was more of a little hometownnewspaper for the lab,” he said. “It made differentgroups at the lab aware of what was happening atthe lab. As time progressed, FERMINEWS becamemore of an opportunity to make other people awarein the Fermilab community and in the scientificcommunity about what was going on at the lab. My expectation is that communicating to a largernetwork is in part the goal with this newpublication.”

The new publication, SYMMETRY, is not exactlyrising from the ashes of FERMINEWS. Moreaccurately, FERMINEWS is branching off into two new directions.

On July 21, 2003, the Office of Public Affairslaunched Fermilab Today, a daily online publicationfor employees and users. With two to three newsfeatures per issue, weekly Director’s Corners,Safety Tips and Results of the Week, FermilabToday has become a staple of communication at Fermilab. In many ways, Fermilab Today willcarry on for FERMINEWS in a different medium.

The new publication, with the working titleSYMMETRY, is scheduled to begin publication inthe fall as a joint effort of Fermilab and StanfordLinear Accelerator Center. The unique collaborationhopes to produce a magazine that will be viewedas something new in the world of science communication. While Fermilab Today is carrying on reporting the news and events atFermilab, SYMMETRY hopes to introduce acommunication style to keep pace with the coming revolution in particle physics—becoming a newsmaker in its own right.

A few members of the Symmetry editorial team (left to right): Neil Calder (SLAC) , Elizabeth Clements (FNAL), Mike Perricone (FNAL), David Harris (Fermilab and SLAC), and Judy Jackson (FNAL). Not pictured: Kurt Riesselmann (FNAL).

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FermilabToday INTRODUCED DAILY E- NEWS,

and SYMMETRY will EXTEND our REACH.


Fermilab has a history of making history, and FERMINEWS has been there to tell the story since 1978. Whether in discovery—the top quarkannouncement in 1995—or disappointment—losing out on the SuperconductingSuper Collider in 1988—FERMINEWS has brought its readers a record ofevents with steadily growing renown for its standards of writing and reporting.

But there would be no news without the science, and no history without thework of the thousands of researchers who have made the lab the world’sfocus in particle physics for the 26 years of FERMINEWS’s run. Here are many of the lab’s greatest hits chronicled in these pages since 1978:

Neutrinos■ MiniBooNE: fourth neutrino,

yes or no■ MINOS: precision neutrino mass

measurements■ First evidence of CP violation

in neutrino sector

B physics■ First observation of Bs mixing

at Tevatron■ BTeV measurement of γTop■ Precision measurements at Tevatron■ Single top production at Tevatron

Dark matter■ CDMS discovery or further best

limits on WIMPS

Higgs search■ New Tevatron limits, both from

direct searches and indirect (precision top and MW measurements)

SUSY■ Extending the search reach for

supersymmetry particles

LHC■ First LHC data analyzed at Fermilab

Linear Collider■ LC technology selection■ Decision on building

Astrophysics■ Pierre Auger: decision on excess

of ultra high energy cosmic rays■ Completion of Sloan Digital Sky

Survey

ON THE WEB:

FERMINEWS Archive: www.fnal.gov/pub/ferminews/

Fermilab’sGreatest Hits(1978-2004)

by Mike Perricone

■ Leon Lederman appointed director—October 19, 1978■ Commissioning of Doubler (Tevatron)—July 5, 1983■ Groundbreaking for Antiproton Source—August 16, 1983■ Doubler (Tevatron) hits 800 GeV—February 16, 1984■ First 1.6 TeV Proton-Antiproton Collisions at CDF—October 13, 1985■ Leon Lederman wins Nobel Prize—October 19, 1988■ John Peoples appointed director—April 19, 1989■ Norman F. Ramsey wins Nobel Prize—October 12, 1989■ First website established—June, 1992 (ties for 2nd in U.S. with MIT,

behind No. 1 SLAC)■ John Peoples named to direct SSC shutdown—November 12, 1993■ Discovery of Top Quark announced—March 2, 1995 ■ Signing of $531 million LHC agreement—December 8, 1997■ First light of SDSS—May 9, 1998■ Michael Witherell appointed director—March 5, 1999■ KTeV announces new result for ε′/ε—March 19, 1999■ Commissioning of Main Injector—April 28, 1999■ Discovery of tau neutrino—July 20, 2000■ Death of Robert Rathbun Wilson—January 16, 2001■ Collider Run II begins—March 1, 2001■ First cosmic ray events at Pierre Auger Observatory—June 8, 2001■ KTeV announces new result for sin2θw—October 26, 2001■ First MiniBooNE events—September 12, 2002■ First MINOS data—August 14, 2003■ CDMS sets most sensitive dark matter limits—May 3, 2004■ First Fermilab magnet shipped to LHC—May 11, 2004

A hit and a miss: in 1987, FERMINEWS reportedsupport in Washington for the SSC; in 1993, thenews was John Peoples’ appointment to terminatethe SSC.

What’s next? The stories of the next few years:


Discovery of the Top Quark: The Building of the Dream

Tevatron construction, 1982 Aerial of the site, 1978 Antiproton Source construction, 1983

Delivering the CDF endcap, 1984 Dedication of the Tevatron, 1985 First P-Pbar event at CDF, 1985

DZero construction work, 1987 Top Quark event, 1994

Official announcement of the discovery… …made headlines around the world, 1995


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From bosons to bowling, from parking lots to prairie harvests, fromscintillators to scientists: For more than 25 years, FERMINEWS has covered all aspects of life at Fermilab, the “home where the buffalo roam and theparticles collide all day.”

Headlines such as “Bushwackers and Jedi take turns beating each other”(Sept. 18, 1980) indicated early on that Fermilab was no ordinary workplaceand FERMINEWS was no ordinary newsletter. Whether reporting on sportsevents or the I-R 100 awards for technological achievements, the publicationreported on all types of world-class achievements at the lab, including “SteveConlon and David Carlson set a new world record in Fermilab’s Main RingCanoe Race.” (Sept. 25, 1980).

FERMINEWS has always celebrated and honored the cultural diversity of the users, employees and friends of Fermilab. The Jan. 3, 1980 cover of thenewsletter proclaimed “Happy New Year” in more than 20 languages, perhapsin anticipation of the increasingly international distribution of the publication.(This year, 2,100 of the 14,000 copies of each issue were mailed abroad.)

For the FERMINEWS staff, the top story—pun intended—was the firstsighting of the top quark (May 6,1994). FERMINEWS reporters had thepleasure of mingling with science writers from around the world. “Nearly fifty reporters from the United States, Korea, Japan, Germany and Taiwangathered in Wilson Hall’s One West for a press conference held April 26.”

In 1995, FERMINEWS became available to a larger audience with its contentposted on the Web, first as pdf files, later both as pdf and html versions. Theuse of large photos and more graphics in the layout began to enhance thevisual appeal of the print copy.

by Kurt Riesselmann

26Years of Quirks&Quarks

ON THE WEB:


Phil Livdahl (center) stands firmly behindFermilab “FOUNDER” Robert Wilson (left) andFermilab “FLOUNDER” Leon Lederman, 1982.


Bylines and credit lines now identified the authorsand photographers, and the magazine began tohire science writing interns to produce content for additional pages.

Creativity became a trademark of the evolvingpublication. From the “All W Edition” (Dec. 12,1997) to portraying physicist Alvin Tollestrup asUncle Sam (April 17, 1998) to “Santa at the Speedof Light” (Dec. 11, 1998), FERMINEWS developedits own quirky personality. The Talk of the Labfeatures regularly poked fun at people andFERMINEWS staff themselves.

One of the most memorable FERMINEWS coversmay have been the “Leon-as-Elvis” stamp (July 18,1997). Like many other great suggestions and funideas for the magazine, the stamp design camefrom Fermilab employees—in this case physicistRocky Kolb and intern Dawn Donahue. “Notavailable in post offices,” the “commemorativestamp honoring b quark discoverer LeonLederman’s 75th birthday” was unveiled at a gala dinner honoring both quark and Lederman.

The late nineties brought stepped-up reporting onscience policy. From science budgets to universityprofiles to “Painless Physics” stories, FERMINEWSexplained the many facets of science while tryingto remain personal and provide a glimpse at life at a national laboratory. A completely differentlayout (Jan. 8, 1999) with a splash of—sometimesdaring—colors completed the transition fromnewsletter to magazine.

FERMINEWS has served food for thought in many different ways. The Dec. 17, 1999 issue had readers guess the names of 42 Nobel Prize-winning particle physicists whose portraits made up the cover. The related story gave backgroundinformation on the 1999 Nobel Prize, awarded to Gerardus ‘t Hooft and Martinus Veltman for“elucidating the quantum structure of electroweakinteractions in physics.”

A few years later, FERMINEWS initiated a dialoguewithin the particle physics community by introducingthe series “Communicating Particle Physics in the21st Century” (March 29, 2002). Many scientistsand readers used the opportunity for a debate on how to explain to the public the revolutionaryparticle physics opportunities ahead of them.

The FERMINEWS staff welcomed articles andcomments from readers. It was an honor to receivea letter from Jared L. Cohon, President of CarnegieMellon University (Aug. 4, 2000), who responded to a typo in a story on physics students anduniversities. He explained the difference between a “Melon” and a “Mellon,” informing us that “aCarnegie Melon is a hypothetical menu item thatI’ve not yet been able to convince a local club to adopt.”

The most moving letter may have come fromSuhail Yusuf, Karachi, Pakistan, who sent a “Helloand Assalamu Alaikum” (Nov. 23, 2001). Inspiredby the FERMINEWS obituary on Father Tim Toohig,physicist and Jesuit priest (Oct. 19, 2001), Yusufreferred to Toohig as “the man of Science andSpirituality” and wrote, “I pray to Allah for yoursuccess and all the members of Fermilab.”

After 26 years, it is hard to say good-bye toFERMINEWS. But rest assured: the staff ofFERMINEWS and our colleagues at SLAC promise that the new joint publication will have as many quirks and quarks.

From left: Ice creammetaphor for Cold DarkMatter; Alvin “Uncle Sam”Tollestrup; Leon Ledermanwith an Elvis makeover;SciTech Director RonenMir with large house guest;Lederman (kneeling)greets Drasko Jovanovicfresh from an audiencewith the Pope in Rome;visitor Tom Reiter with 39-inch, 39-pound catfishcaught in the creekbetween Kidney Pond and Swan Lake. The 1996 headline: “And WeThought the Top QuarkWas Massive!”


The View From a Lens:Photographers Pick Their Favorites

TThese photos selected by the current photographers of FERMINEWS represent the key moments and

experiences captured during the 26-year history of the publication. The images provide evidence of the

rich photographic opportunities encountered by 12 different photographers, including capturing the

environmental beauty of the site and recognizing the graceful form of scientific equipment. The images

also represent the unique and exciting human interaction that takes place while doing this work. In simpler

terms, many of the photos depict the fun we have had carrying out basic research at the science frontier.


The View From a Lens:Photographers Pick Their Favorites

Hand-Crafting the News andLaunching New Careers

by Katie Yurkewicz

Seven editors, a dozen photographers, and scores of writers havecontributed to FERMINEWS throughout its 26 years. From modestbeginnings, it evolved into a magazine that launched science-writing careersfor journalists at National Public Radio, The Houston Chronicle, AstronomyMagazine and other notable publications.

“I was 21, about to graduate with a journalism degree, and I was onlyapplying to jobs that looked really cool,” said Katherine Arnold, FERMINEWSintern in 1997 and now news editor at the Journal of the National CancerInstitute. “Don Sena [former assistant head of Public Affairs and FERMINEWSwriter] called me four weeks before graduation to say that I wasn’t qualifiedfor the job I’d applied for, but asked if I would consider being an intern. It wasan outstanding experience to be surrounded by intelligent people who lovewhat they do.”

Sena, now Senior Editor at Microsoft’s MSN Web Portal, brought experienceas a reporter for the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune. He institutedmeetings where the editor, writers and photographers brainstormed ideas forthe broad range of stories FERMINEWS covered, from scientific discoveriesand wildlife to visiting dignitaries and lab sports.

“I remember fondly a series of profiles on the university contingents, andanother on the surrounding towns,” said Sena. “I also remember interviewswith Senator Pete Domenici and Congressmen Joe Barton. We actually hada Washington correspondent for a week, which was great.”

Expanded news coverage and changes in design also enhanced the impactof photos and illustrations.

“Working with the photographers from Visual Media Services was really ahigh point,” remembered Leila Belkora. “I had never realized how much help in storytelling you could get from the pictures.” Belkora, who published“Minding the Heavens: The Story of Our Discovery of the Milky Way”


Rene Donaldson, former editor of FERMINEWS and later editor of SLAC’s Beam Line, with originallab photographer Tony Frelo, founding editor Margaret Pearson, and FERMINEWS correspondentsin 1981. Seated, from left: Peggie Lasenby and Rene Donaldson. Standing, from left: Tony Frelo,Barb Edmondson, Michelle Gleason, Pat Yost, Thornton Murphy, Phyllis Hale, Dick Carrigan, DennisTheriot, Jean Plese, Margaret Pearson, Harlan Dick, Bob Trendler, Treva Gourlay, Cynthia Sazama,Brad Cox, Hank Hinterberger, Roy Rubinstein, Elsie Renaud, Jim Finks and Barb Perington.

ON THE WEB:


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Former intern Eric Berger, now a medicine and science writer atthe Houston Chronicle, conducting a FERMINEWS interview in1996. “FERMINEWS really helped me practice the art of takingsomething complicated and esoteric and making it relevant topeople. When you’re dealing with fundamental particles of theuniverse, like the Higgs boson, that’s a real challenge.” Amongother former FERMINEWS writers, David Kestenbaum nowreports for National Public Radio and Pamela Zerbinos has joined Astronomy Magazine.

The 1997 Fermilab Public Affairs Staff (from left): Kathy Johnson, Don Sena, Judy Jacksonand Luann O’Boyle. “One of the great challenges and one of the most satisfying things aboutFERMINEWS in its recent incarnation is the ability to write stories that appeal to people witha very broad range of interests. It has let people connect in a human way to life at a particleaccelerator laboratory,” said Jackson, current head of Public Affairs.

“When FERMINEWS came in from the printer, weonly had an hour to label and bundle over 3,000copies,” she said. “Every one in the publicationsoffice would pitch in—we would have contests onwho could label the most the fastest. We’d alwayshave paper cuts when we were done, but welearned that superglue will close them right up.”

Employees who have contributed to FERMINEWSsaid they enjoyed working and learning from eachother as much as they relished meeting peoplefrom all around the laboratory and beyond while on assignment.

“The stories I really enjoyed were about retirees,”recalled Crego. “Jean Slisz and I would interviewpeople as they were leaving, and they would tellwonderful tales of their work here, the experiencesthat they had and the challenges that they met. It was a nice way to say goodbye to them, and to give them the opportunity to pass down a littlebit of lab history.”

As FERMINEWS now retires and all of its talesbecome part of Fermilab history, its manycontributors bid it a fond farewell.

“Itwas an outstanding experience to be surrounded by intelligent people who lovewhat they do.”

in 2002, developed her interest in the history ofscience while at the lab from 1995 to 1997.

“I remember going out with Leila to Rock Island,Illinois to photograph the lamination stacking of thedipoles for the Main Injector,” said photographerand VMS manager Fred Ullrich. “We traveled four-and-a-half hours through a blizzard to get severalshots and an interview. It was a great time.”

In the early days, the layout, printing and mailingwere mostly done by hand. Rick Fenner, formereditor of FERMINEWS and current Manager ofScientific Information Services for Argonne’sAdvanced Photon Source, remembered paste-upson paper and getting the first Macintosh computer,when he could only see one-quarter of a page at a time on the screen. Cindy Crego, editor ofFERMINEWS in the early 1990s and now deputyhead of Lab Services, recalled the “mailing parties.”

Where else could you read about the first observation of the tau neutrino; the flowering of the yellow prairie coneflower; an award for a Vietnamese maestro of physics conferences; and grilled rib lamb chops with basil butter and tomato risotto—all in one issue?

Only in FERMINEWS. The issue with the tau neutrino appearedon August 14, 2000, but you could pick up almost any copy andfind a similarly eclectic mix of physics and just about anythingelse, always including the Chez Léon menu.

March 16, 2001: The Odds of Discovery (What Sigma Means);Safety Officer Martha Heflin; Profile of Northern Illinois University;Tortellini Carbonara, Caesar Salad, Peach Melba.

October 18, 2002: New Computing Division Head; Prehistoric Artifacts on the Fermilab site; Students Visit from Alabama High School; Grilled VegetableSalad with Goat Cheese, Crab Stuffed Fillet of Sole, Chocolate Soufflé withFrangelico Ice Cream.

June 27, 2003: Run II Status; Michael Turner on Why Accelerators Matter;Physics of a Corked Baseball Bat; Last MINOS Plane Installed; Field Greens,Pears and Parmesan, Pork Tenderloin with Marsala Sauce, Yam Puree,Peach Melba. (Peach Melba again? Didn’t we just have that two years ago?)

It was all there in FERMINEWS, plus the classified ads.

For a couple of reasons, FERMINEWS was not your average physicslaboratory newsletter. First, it had a diverse audience: not only Fermilabemployees, retirees and users but the greater particle physics community,colleagues at other laboratories around the world, people in government,students, particle physics groupies—and our next-door neighbors. Recently,having paid his debt to society, one of FERMINEWS’s readers requested an address change from his previous residence at one of the nation’s morewell-known correctional institutions. Not everyone believed it was possible to produce one publication for so many different readers, but FERMINEWSdefinitely tried. It was gratifying to walk into a Congressman’s office inWashington and see a copy of FERMINEWS on his desk, but perhaps just as gratifying to see it on the coffee table in the dentist’s office in Batavia.(It was really gratifying to see it in the dentist’s office in Geneva, Switzerland.)

From the start, FERMINEWS aimed to give a picture of real life at a particlephysics laboratory. Perhaps it was ahead of its time, but FERMINEWS wasabout reality before reality was cool. That meant that readers were as likely to find a story about the driver of the Fermilab taxi or the coming of spring to the Fermilab prairie as they were about the latest development insuperconducting magnet technology or accelerator luminosity records. Stories about accounting systems and profiles of neighboring villages

by Judy Jackson


What’s Cooking?

ON THE WEB:

Chez Léon: http://lss.fnal.gov/chezleon/

What’s Cooking?

Chez Léon and chef Tita Jensen recentlycelebrated 25 years of culinary contributionsto the quality of life at the lab.

This is the FINAL ISSUE of FERMINEWS.Please send comments to: Public Affairs Office, MS 206, Fermilab, P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, or e-mail to [email protected]. Letters from readers are welcome. Pleaseinclude name and daytime phone number.

And thanks for the memories.

Fermilab is a national laboratory fundedby the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy, operated by Universities Research Association, Inc.

www.fnal.govwww.doe.govwww.ura-hq.org


FERMINEWS is published by Fermilab’s Office of Public Affairs.Phone: 630-840-3351

Design and Illustration:Performance Graphics

Photography: Fermilab’s Visual Media Services

FERMINEWS Archive at:http://www.fnal.gov/pub/ferminews/

F N E E R W M S I Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory / Kirk Road and Pine Street / P.O. Box 500 / Batavia, IL 60510

Office of Science / U.S. Department of Energy / Managed by Universities Research Association, Inc.

FOR RESERVATIONS, CALL X4512CAKES FOR SPECIAL OCCASIONS

DIETARY RESTRICTIONS

CONTACT TITA, X3524HTTP://WWW.FNAL.GOV/FAW/EVENTS/MENUS.HTML

LUNCH SERVED FROM

11:30 A.M. TO 1 P.M.$10/PERSON

DINNER SERVED AT 7 P.M.$23/PERSON

LUNCHWEDNESDAY, JUNE 2Danish Open SandwichesCucumber and Dill Salad

Apple Walnut Strudel

LUNCHWEDNESDAY, JUNE 9

Pita Pockets with Tuna, Bean Caesar Salad

Pickled Beets and Red OnionsYogurt Cake

with Blueberries and Orange Sauce


Grilled Lemongrass ChickenVegetables on Rice Noodles

Cornmeal Cake with Cherry Compote


Coriander Beef with TortillasCorn Salsa

Mango Cheesecake

DINNERTHURSDAY, JUNE 3

Booked

DINNERTHURSDAY, JUNE 10

Booked

DINNERTHURSDAY, JUNE 17 Bacon Wrapped Scallops

with Maple CreamVeal Medallions with Lemon PeelSauteed Spinach with Pine Nuts

Apricot Tart with Honey and Almonds

DINNERTHURSDAY, JUNE 24 Fafalle with Gorgonzola

Grilled Halibut with Tomato Caper Sauce

Steamed Green BeansHazelnut Cake

with Frangelico Cream Angelis

shared its pages with articles on neutrino physicsand science funding. Not that FERMINEWSdidn’t cover science and science policy. It simplyrecognized that there’s more to life at a physics lab than—uh—physics.

In fact, FERMINEWS was always as much aboutpeople as physics. A lot of the people in it weredoing physics, or thinking about physics, or thinkingabout funding for physics, or teaching physics, ormaking physics experiments work. But plenty ofothers were harvesting prairie seeds or balancingbooks or shoveling snow. Or cooking great mealsfor all of the above. FERMINEWS once ran a storyabout a reporter’s mom. What it came down to isthat FERMINEWS was a family publication, fromthe nuclear (not that kind of nuclear) family that is Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory to theextended family of readers around the world and in the neighborhood who care about Fermilab and particle physics.

Which probably explains why readers loved thoseChez Léon menus. Everyone knows that the most important question in any family is, “What’s for dinner?” Wednesday lunch at Chez Léon.

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http://www.fnal.gov/pub/ferminews/

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory / Office of Public Affairs / P.O. Box 500 / Batavia, IL 60510

Office of Science / U.S. Department of Energy / Managed by Universities Research Association, Inc.

CLASSIFIEDS

For more than three months (December,1995 through March, 1996) Bob Flora keptmaking an offer that everybody seemedable to refuse. Every two weeks, he ran an ad in FERMINEWS offering his red1990 Mitsubishi Eclipse for sale, at a price ranging from a hopeful high of $9,513 to a close-shaved low of $8,651.

The sales campaign wound up as a back-page story in the FERMINEWSissue of March 8, 1996, headlined: “THELONGEST-RUNNING CLASSIFIED AD.”Accompanying the story was a graphdisplaying price and mileage as a functionof time. Apparently, the publicity had itseffect.

“There’s a nice twist to the story,” Florasaid

Shortly after the story appeared, Flora sold the car to Brian Chase, a friend who worked a few doors down the hall in the Transfer Gallery. Flora admitted to “bringing the price down a little,” but aused-car transaction can be a fast way toend a friendship. So what happened next?

“Bob and I have known and workedtogether for years,” said Chase, “and,yes—we are still friends after thetransaction. Bob has helped me out with the Eclipse several times. He is theonly guy that I know that has a mechanic’spit built into his garage, and I have alwaysbeen able to make him feel guilty enoughto give me a hand when I needed it. Who says buying a car from a friend is a bad idea?”

Not only are they still friends, but the 1990 Eclipse is still running.

“We now have four drivers in our family,”Chase reported. “When I bought it, mythree young boys all could fit in the backseat. Now two of them are over six feettall, so those days are long gone. I stillenjoy taking it out for a drive in the country,though. It’s been a good car.”

Flora knows just what he means.

“When I sold that one,” Flora said, “I wentout and bought another one exactly like it.I’m still driving it.”

“Friendship and money: oil and water.”—Mario Puzo, “The Godfather, Part III”

Buying a Used Car From a Friend: It’s a Long Storyby Mike Perricone

Friendship and used cars do mix, as long as you keepthe oil changed. Here are Bob Flora (left) and BrianChase today, with the 1990 Mitsubishi Eclipse sportcoupe that Chase bought from Flora in March, 1996.The car was the subject of the longest-runningClassified ad in FERMINEWS history.

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